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July 9, 2010

Kaesong Updates

A bus accident, apparently caused in part by bad weather, has killed 10 North Korean workers and injured 40 others at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which, by the way, subsidizes Kim Jong Il to the tune of $50 million per month. Give a thought to the poor families of the dead … and the wounded as well. I’m not sure how much of that substantial sum goes into providing suitable medical care for the North Korean people, but my best...

Categories Human Trafficking/NK Economics/North-South/Sunshine
June 14, 2010

Hard Times in the North

Report: North Korea cuts state rations, forced to lift market restrictions after China fails to deliver on aid. Assuming this report is accurate, my guess is that those who suffer most from this will be the enlisted ranks in less-favored military units and lower-ranking state workers. Most people are already cut out of the ration system and dependent on the markets, and the regime always seems to find enough food for the Inner Party, the officers, the internal security services,...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Refugees
May 17, 2010

Global Outrage as African Animals Are Treated Like North Korean Human Beings

It’s not just elephants that Zimbabwe is capturing and shipping to North Korea: Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe has ordered that two of every animal species in the Hwange National Park be sent to North Korea as a gift to that country’s leader, Kim Jong Il. [Johannesburg Times] Conservationists say the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, will send a modern-day ark, containing pairs of giraffes, zebras, baby elephants and other wild animals taken from a national park, to a zoo in...

Categories Africa/Interviews/Refugees/WTF?
May 17, 2010

North Korea Cracks Down on Border Crossings Again

Open News reports that North Korea’s latest crackdown on border-crossing has made it difficult to get out of the country for any price: Around the mid-1990s when North Korean defectors first emerged, the fee for crossing the river was 300-500 Yuan, about 50,000-80,000 Korean Won. The fee for crossing the river continued to rise as more and more North Koreans were escaping. In early 2009, the fee was 5,000-6,000 Yuan (800,000-1 million won), which is a 10-fold increase compared to...

Categories Border Control/Refugees
April 25, 2010

North Korea Freedom Week, Day 1: NKHR Exhibit Opening Ceremony

North Korea Freedom Week 2010 is underway! At 3 p.m. Sunday the ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for an exhibit on North Korean Human Rights Exhibit that will run all week in two large rooms on the first floor of the Seoul Press Center. The first room primarily focuses on Gang Gil-su and his extended family, who lived in hiding in China for about three years from 1999-2001 after escaping North Korea. On display are dozens of crayon drawings depicting their...

Categories Human Rights/Refugees
April 21, 2010

If North Korea’s Attempt to Kill Hwang Jang Yop Isn’t the State Sponsorship of Terrorism, I Don’t Know What Is

Two North Korean agents sent to South Korea to assassinate Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking official ever to defect from Pyongyang, have been arrested, intelligence and law enforcement authorities announced yesterday. According to the National Intelligence Service and prosecutors, Kim Yong-ho, 36, and Dong Myong-gwan, 36, have been arrested. Both men were majors of the North Korean Army’s reconnaissance bureau, the authorities said. The two agents were ordered in November by the bureau’s chief, Colonel General Kim Yong-chol, to assassinate Hwang,...

Categories Defectors/Terrorism (NK)
April 19, 2010

For North Korean Spies, Sending Refugees to the Gulag Is Entry Level Work

While most of my allotted blogging time has been consumed by following the Cheonan Incident, several other k-blogs covered the story of one “Kim,” a South Korean, who volunteered in 1999 to work for North Korean intelligence, hunt down and rat out defectors hiding in China, and send them blissfully off to death, or a fate worse than. He also agreed to spy on activists helping the refugees, and on the South Korean military. “Kim” has since been arrested by...

Categories Refugees/The Fifth Column
April 1, 2010

Hwang Jang Yop Calls for Ideological Warfare Against Kim Jong Il

I was too busy to see Hwang Jang Yop speak in D.C. the other day, but a few news services picked up his remarks: North Korea’s highest-ranking defector said “ideological warfare,” not military action, would help topple the regime of Kim Jong Il. “We don’t need to resort to force,” Hwang Jang-yop told a small audience Wednesday at the Center for Strategic International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. “We need to use ideology and markets and diplomacy. We need to...

Categories Defectors/Propaganda/Subversion
March 30, 2010

Lankov on the New North Korean Elite, Part 2

Alternative elite members who can apply the knowledge they learned in South Korea well in the North Korean reality could be doctors, technicians, CEOs and scholars of a post-Kim age. Re-education could cultivate specialists in the new North Korea. Despite the very low economic level, North Korea provides a fairly good basic education. Therefore, when carrying out the rehabilitation of North Korea, re-education based on the knowledge they already have is more reasonable than educating North Korean specialists such as...

Categories Reconstruction/Refugees/Regime Change
March 23, 2010

Fear and Loathing Across the Tumen, Part 1

The Times of London sent correspondent Jane Macartney to China’s border with North Korea and found that the refugees there are reporting a rapidly deteriorating food situation, deepening discontent with the regime, and more willingness than ever to express that discontent openly. The editors of the Times are shocked enough by the report to write these cogent words in an editorial: Of all the atrocities of modern history, famine is the least commemorated. It is an agonising mass death sentence...

Categories NK Economics/Refugees/Resistance
March 17, 2010

We Regret to Inform You That Your One-Way Ticket to Paradise is Non-Refundable

Back in late January, North Korea claimed that an American who feared becoming “cannon fodder in the capitalist [all-volunteer] military” had crossed over to the loving embrace of the relevant organ. Despite my own growing doubts about the story, the fact that the Swedes have since had two consular visits with him does suggest that he exists after all. The U.S. State Department says North Korea has allowed Swedish diplomats to meet a U.S. citizen who has been detained for...

Categories Defectors/WTF?
March 11, 2010

Claudia Rosett on North Korean Loggers in Russia

The defection of those two loggers at the South Korean consulate in Vladivostok inspires further thought from Claudia Rosett: I’ve seen those North Korean lumberjacks–or at least their predecessors. In 1994 I was working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Moscow when a story turned up in the Russian press, saying that North Korea was running lumber camps in remote areas of Russia. In Moscow, Russian officials confirmed to me that they had two big logging operations...

Categories Defectors/Russia/Russia & Korea
March 8, 2010

The LiNK / Pepsi Contest Isn’t Over After All

I’m not sure of what the story is, or why Pepsi’s site used to say, “Voting ends on February 28th,” and now says, “Voting ends on March 31st,” but LiNK confirms they’re still in the running for $250K. I suppose that means I’ll have to fix that button and put it back in my sidebar. For now, vote here. They’ve dropped to number 7, so they definitely need your vote. And if anyone from LiNK can explain why the deadline...

Categories Activism/Refugees
March 4, 2010

North Korean Soldier Defects Via Kumgang Crossing (Updated: He Wasn’t Alone)

Update, 4 Mar 2010: According to this article (link in Korean), he didn’t come alone. There were originally four. Of the other three, one was killed while trying to escape, and two more are still missing. The greatest significance is the personal tragedy for the three who didn’t make it, and for the families of all four of the soldiers, who will almost certainly become objects of the regime’s collective retribution. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers. [Satellite images...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/NK Military
February 28, 2010

23 Countries Have Accepted North Korean Refugees

Stumbed upon (lower case) this fascinating UNHCR chart of countries that have accepted refugees from North Korea.  23 countries have accepted at least one refugee — definitely an international problem.  Original article here at RFA (Korean). First of all, as of the end of 2008, Germany has granted refugee status to 1390 North Korean refugees.  I had NO idea so many have been accepted in any single country outside of South Korea.  The article says over 2000 have been accepted...

Categories Refugees
February 24, 2010

Last Push to Help LiNK Win $250K

We’re coming up on the final days of the Pepsi’s “Refresh “Everything” campaign. Some of you, like me, have been voting for LiNK faithfully every day. Thank you. For the rest of you, I humbly ask you to join the effort in a last push. You can go here to vote. If LiNK can make it to second place, it wins the money. The problem is, it’s still stuck in 4th place. Now, I’m one of those people who doesn’t...

Categories Activism/Refugees
February 22, 2010

South Korean Leftists Should Take a Tip from Oh Kil-Nam

To Oh, a left-leaning South Korean economist, defecting to North Korea with his entire family seemed like a peachy idea at the time (1985). Today, Oh is one of a very few people who has a souvenir photograph of his family standing in the snow at Camp 15, the infamous Yodok Camp described by Kang Chol-Hwan in “The Aquariums of Pyongyang.” As it turns out, “the relevant organ” means the large intestine. His activism attracted the attention of North Korean...

Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Propaganda/The Camps